Page 68 of Chain Reaction

“Only one here. General Turner took care of the other one.”

“Was she armed? She flew commercial.”

“She used a book. That’s why I’m helping her. She’s one of a kind.”

Elwood checked the rearview mirror, and then he checked his watch. He said, “Incoming.”

Reacher twisted around and saw the taxi approaching. It was white, the same as before, but a minivan, not a small SUV. Different body shape, but the same swellings and warts and other protuberances. No one at the wheel, no one in the back. Its radar and its cameras detected them well in time, and it moved smoothly left and passed them by, leaving a safe and generous margin. It moved back to its previous precise distance from the curb, and then tucked in and slowed to a gentle stop ninety feet ahead, exactly level with Lazarus Lorenzo’s shingle.

“You need to close the gap fast,” Reacher said. “You need to be right behind it before the first turn. You’re going to have to break the speed limit, for the first ninety feet at least. You’ll get over it.”

“Why the suppressors? Who are we going to shoot today?”

“They look dramatic. Like in the movies. We need to scare Hugo into the car without a lot of fuss. Visuals matter.”

Ninety feet away Lazarus Lorenzo’s door opened and Hugo stepped out to the path. He walked straight ahead and the taxi slid its door open for him. He ducked inside. The door slid shut again and the turn signal flashed and the taxi moved off the curb. It rolled away down the road. Elwood accelerated hard, past twenty-five, past thirty, up to almost forty miles an hour briefly, before lifting off again and coasting neatly into position less than a car’s length behind.

“Nice work,” Reacher said.

The taxi’s rear window had a gray tint. They could see the back of Hugo’s head, a dark shape, indistinct. The taxi’s turn signal flashed and it turned right on a side street. Elwood followed it, like he was being hauled on a rope. The taxi drove two blocks west and signaled right again and turned north onto California Avenue. Elwood followed it all the way. They passed places Reacher recognized. The Sequoia Suites, the street with all the restaurants, the turn toward El Camino Real. The taxi drove on, steady at twenty-five miles an hour, reading the road ahead, gliding smoothly left and right to maintain an exactly equitable distance between cars parked on the right and cars coming toward it on the left. It was a way better driver than Reacher himself. He was impressed.

They left Palo Alto and entered Old Palo Alto, which didn’t look much different. They crossed the line into the beginnings of Menlo Park. Ten feet ahead the taxi turned right and then a rare left onto a straighter, wider street. Elwood tracked it all the way. No difficulty. He was a way better driver than Reacher too. Suddenly on the left and the right were dense residential streets. Tasteful landscaping hid attractive houses. No doubt worth multiple millions of dollars each. There were shiny new cars parked on immaculate driveways. It looked like a very nice neighborhood.

The taxi signaled right and turned off the wide street.

Elwood followed.

“Could be getting close now,” Reacher said.

“Our boy has done well for himself,” Elwood said.

“Yeah, and we know how.”

The taxi slowed down.

“I’ll go right and you go left,” Reacher said. “Hit him the second he gets out.”

The taxi signaled right and eased toward the curb. It slowed gradually to a gentle stop outside a house with creamy stucco and a wide low roof. The front yard had manicured evergreens growing among fist-sized stones. Elwood jammed to a stop behind the taxi. Reacher scrambled out. He hustled forward. The taxi’s door slid open. Hugo ducked out and stepped straight into the muzzle of Reacher’s silenced Glock.

“United States Army,” Reacher said. “You’re under arrest.”

Behind them the taxi’s door slid shut again and it drove itself away, unknowing and uncaring. Hugo turned his head and watched it go, like his last hope. Elwood stepped in behind him and clamped his elbow. He said, “Don’t make a sound.”

Elwood was smaller than Hugo, but evidently stronger. Hugo was propelled forward like a rag doll. He stumbled a car’s length and Elwood forced him into the front passenger seat that Reacher had just vacated. Reacher got busy with the duct tape. He wound a length around Hugo’s right wrist, one loop, two, three, and then figure-eighted it around his right thigh, just above the knee. He did the same with his left wrist. It gave Hugo’s hands an inch or two of free movement, but nothing more. The tan of the tape was about halfway between the tan of Hugo’s skin and the tan of his pants. Not too obvious. Safe enough, against a casual glance inside. Finally Reacher leaned in and clipped Hugo’s seat belt. He tugged it tight against the inertia reel. Hips and chest. Restrained in plain sight. He closed Hugo’s door and got in the back behind him. For one last definitive check he took out the tall guy’s burner. From Denver. The first casualty in Summertown. He opened the log and touched the Lazarus Lorenzo number to call it back.

A phone rang in Hugo’s pocket.

Reacher killed the call and leaned forward and spoke next to Hugo’s ear. He said, “You have two options now. Behave yourself, in which case you’ll be OK. Or don’t behave yourself, in which case I’ll shoot you through the seat, low down in the small of your back. The bullet will sever your spine. You’ll be a paraplegic the rest of your life. Wheelchairs and colostomy bags. That is, if you make it to the emergency room before you bleed out. Are we clear?”

“I’m an attorney,” Hugo said. “I have rights.”

“You’re in my world now,” Reacher said. “Where you have no rights at all.”

“I can’t testify. Everything I know is privileged.”

“In a courtroom, maybe. But we’re headed somewhere completely different. No sidebars, no approaching the bench, no motions to dismiss. That’s all behind you now. That’s gone forever. Last night you sent a man to my friend’s house. That was a bad mistake. Now it’s walking or a wheelchair. Are we clear?”

There was a long pause.